A sex worker with a penis that was dressed as a woman, probably a woman.

I saw this quote on tumblr that I think sums it up nicely

It’s possible police catching them doing sexual acts was catching Miller assaulting/raping her or ultimately stopped him from beating or killing her because Miller says that was his intention, we don’t even know what happened to her because the story is fucked up and cares more about the sensational story of a KKK member supposedly having “gay sex” than what happened to a Black trans woman WHO WAS TARGETED BY A VIOLENT MURDERER AND MAY HAVE BEEN RAPED OR HARMED. Who is a human being who I’m sure police arrested and perhaps brutalized and is probably in prison right now, probably with male prisoners and still in danger. Who knows what is going to happen to her or happened to her.

It' makes for a witty headline, sure. But the story deserves a little more reporting than it's being given here.

I expect it from the right, like this kkk guy, but I am sick of dealing with transmisogyny from the center and left too, like this story.

"male prostitute dressed as a female"

I am sick of this phrase, which usually refers to trans womyn, rather than men, despite being female, and often despite not being prostitutes, because apparently being trans is enough for the cops and the news to jump to conclusions...

I look at this story, and it looks like he was interested in violence against black trans womyn, not that he was interested in sex with black men.

What's really weird is like 3 years ago the local alternative station interviewed this guy as he had placed these crazy ads running for state senate. Guy was nutty. Pulled out some crazy stat about blacks raping all the white women lol.

Miller, now 73, was caught by Raleigh, N.C. police in the backseat of a car engaged in a sex act with a black male prostitute who was dressed as a woman…

Comes from a decidedly pro-LGBTI publication, The Gay Star News. I think it's likely they weren't intentionally promoting transmisogyny, but I don't know what the proper etiquette is for quoting news items which make assumptions about gender identity.

A sex worker with a penis that was dressed as a woman, probably a woman.

Obviously the police report from the 1980s would not have recognized that a trans woman working as a sex worker was a woman, and the reporters were presumably unable to make contact with the sex worker in question. But I think you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions here.

Being a trans woman is not the only reason that a man might wear a dress. In fact, it is pretty easy to imagine why a man who is trying to sell sex to other men in North Carolina in the 1980s might be superficially disguised as a woman (enough to fool onlookers at a distance, say). It also could have had an impact on his appeal to white pretending-not-to-be-gay-and-to-be-disgusted-by-black-people demographic that he was largely serving.

I understand why we shouldn't jump to conclusions about the sex worker, but that is exactly what we shouldn't do: jump to conclusions. If you read the full story then you know the "male prostitute in a dress" is so described by Raleigh police in the 80s, and you can take that description with the appropriate grain of salt.